http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
ONCE IT WAS ENOUGH for Americans to be led by presidents who were
competent, honorable and committed to the cause of justice. Today, voters
demand political lovemaking. They want to be assured that a candidate cares
deeply about all of society's victims. They need to be smothered in a syrupy
rhetorical embrace.

An article in last week's New York Times noted that Gov. George W. Bush's
campaign appearances are staged to showcase his concern. "The evening news
programs show Mr. Bush surrounded by winsome minority children or troubled
teens or poor but determined single mothers talking of hopes for building a
better life."

He is the very model of a "compassionate conservative" who will rally "the
armies of compassion." Is he running for president of the United States or
head of the Salvation Army?

Not to be outdone, Vice President Al Gore spent last week succoring victims
of violent crime. Better he should stop sniping at the admirable
implementation of the death penalty in Texas.

An unnamed Bush adviser concedes in the Times piece that the strategy is to
craft the governor's image as a political philanthropist.

The aide confided that swing voters "are not taking their stands (for a
candidate) on individual issues, but their feelings about what values the
candidate reflects."

That is to say, vaguely defined positions set in saccharine campaign events
are windows on a candidate's soul that give voters the ability to determine
if he has the emotional equipment for the job.

Try to imagine Teddy Roosevelt telling voters he felt their pain. During
his famous whistle-stop tour in the 1948 presidential campaign, Harry Truman
told the crowds that he was on their side because he was one of them. He
didn't profess to be their surrogate daddy, overflowing with paternal
affection.

In his book "Plagues of the Mind: The New Epidemic of False Knowledge,"
Bruce Thornton explains our compassion obsession. "Like sensitivity,"
Thornton writes, "displays of compassion are desirable because they cheaply
endow a person with moral superiority. They show he is a lover of humanity,
a foe of unfairness, and an enemy of those benighted villains who cause this
suffering."

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There is no better example of cut-rate compassion of the lip-service
variety than the man who currently occupies the address Bush covets. Bill
Clinton can cry on cue and is quicker with a hug than Oprah Winfrey
comforting a recovering whatever.

There are those who detect hypocrisy here. On the contrary, I've always
assumed that Clinton's compassion wasn't a pose, but a sad attempt to
compensate for his deeply flawed character.

In two elections, we fell for the pain-feeling. We got an administration
that barbecued some harmless wackos in Waco, got real cozy with Beijing (a
regime renowned for its oppression), and sent a 6-year-old back to a slave
state.

After seven years of this slobbering sideshow, you'd think that voters
would, in the words of Ronald Reagan, have had it up the keister with
political compassion. But, no. Now as much as in 1992 and 1996, it's bring
on the hankies and hugs, pour the tea and serve the sympathy.

There are two problems with political compassion. First, despite Bush's
volunteerist gloss, it usually works to the benefit of big government.
Compassion is more easily demonstrated in appropriations for public
programs (welfare, housing, prescription-drug coverage) than in, say,
proposals to give tax breaks to churches involved in the work of human
reclamation, which actually have a better chance of success.

Too, they are a distraction. Other than a few tax-cut proposals and a very
modest and limited education-vouchers plan that the candidate never talks
about any more, we still have only the haziest idea of Bush's agenda --
assuming he actually has one.

Bush seems to be running merely to govern. Like his father before him, he
thinks it would be swell to be president. Cynically or not, his camp has
decided that issues are an obstacle, and that the key to victory is making
voters feel good about the governor by parading his feelings.

Compassion Tour 2000 will end in Philadelphia (appropriately, the City of
Brotherly Love) next week with an empathy orgy to dull the senses and churn
the
stomach.

JWR contributing columnist Don Feder's latest books are Who is afraid of the Religious Right? ($15.95) and A Jewish conservative looks at pagan America ($9.95). To receive an autographed copy, send a check or money order to: Don Feder, The Boston Herald, 1 Herald Sq., Boston, Mass. 02106. Doing so will help fund JWR, if so noted. To comment on this column click here.